Daffodil Project Honors Lubin with Ceremonial Planting
The Project also celebrated the planting of its one millionth bulb.
On Monday, Nov. 4, at Dunwoody High School several hundred students gathered in the auditorium for a ceremony held by the Daffodil Project, honoring the memory of Rose Lubin as part of the season in which their millionth daffodil was planted.
On Nov. 6, 2023, Rose Lubin was killed by subsequent wounds from a stabbing terrorist attack in the Old City of Jerusalem, where she was on duty serving as an IDF Border Police officer.
“It far exceeded my expectations,” said Robin Lubin, Rose’ mother. “I was expecting just a few JSU students, Rabbi Neiditch, the principal, some family friends there, and some students. What ended up happening was they filled the auditorium with staff and students, the mayor, and a representative came, and a Holocaust survivor.”
“At first, it was supposed to be in the media room,” said Rose’ father, David Lubin, “but then it got so large they said, ‘we’re moving it to the auditorium’ because about 300 kids showed up, voluntarily, to listen to a Holocaust survivor – Hershel Greenblat.”
After watching a half-hour documentary on Greenblat’s life, students listened to him speak.
“It was like you could hear a pin drop,” said Robin Lubin. “Everybody was paying attention. The teachers even said, ‘I looked around the room the entire time – all eyes were up watching you guys speak.’”
“If someone needs help, help them,” said Greenblat, in a video celebrating the millionth daffodil planted. “That’s what I want them to learn. And that’s what these flowers represent. They represent the hatred of what happened to these children, but they also represent a future, the future of a world that just doesn’t hate each other.”
“Hershel’s message is fighting against hatred,” said David Lubin. “What killed his family was hatred. We need to figure out ways in today’s world to fight against that. One of our real messages with Rose’ life was that she was a person who was non-judgmental, didn’t judge, and stood up to bullies, stood up to hate. It’s really a similar message that we both have.”
Am Yisrael Chai’s Daffodil Project, whose long-term goal is to plant 1.5 million daffodils in memory of the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust, is marking the season with a special plaque at each planting location commemorating the one-million milestone. But at Dunwoody High School, and at several other locations around Atlanta and beyond, another will be joining it, containing a quote from Rose. The one at Dunwoody High School reads “I am not going to wait for the world to do something great for me, I am going to do something great for the world.”
It was to the bed behind this plaque that the students and community who had gathered in the auditorium walked, after hearing from Rose’ family. The beds had been prepared during a general volunteer day the Saturday before by students and members of the PTA, with soil and mulch donated by the local Ace Hardware store.
The Daffodil Project usually provides 250 daffodils at no charge. At DHS, they provided 500 additional daffodils for Rose. Temple Emanu-El also supplied an additional 250 daffodils, meaning that 1,000 daffodils total were planted that day, in the memory of Rose and the 1.5 million children who were killed.
“They had already prepared the bed,” said Robin Lubin, “so you just put the bulb down, and then there was bags of soil to cover it. Everybody participated. It was really amazing. I was floored at the response.”
“Dunwoody High School was the first planting that was done in honor and in memory of Rose, and subsequently, we also did one at Atlanta Jewish Academy, where she was a student too,” said Andrea Videlfsky, head of the Daffodil Project.
A number of other plantings followed these, including at Congregation Ariel and the pre-school at Congregation Beth Jacob, with several more planned for this and the following season.
“The family came up with a list of places where we’re going to continue to plant these gardens in memory of Rose,” said Videlfsky, “including some sights at Nashville and Memphis – just sites that are very important to the family, where they have family members, and where people, I think the entire community, has kind of come together around the values that Rose held dear to her heart. And it’s just such an important way of providing some expression of support for the family, and also honoring the kind of person that Rose was.”
The Daffodil Project would like to thank the many members of the community that made the event possible, including Jennifer Shulman, Andrea Levy, and Lori Borer from Temple Emanu-El, DHS Principal Tom Bass and his assistant Melanie King and teachers Talia Salus and Adrienne Bashuk, and the Jewish Student Union and Students Against Antisemitism clubs at DHS.
Rose Lubin is a graduate of Dunwoody High School.
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